Pat McAfee has brought his trademark chaos to College GameDay, and ESPN has certainly benefited from the attention. But the same personality that attracts viewers has also created plenty of detractors. Criticism is nothing new for McAfee, although one fan’s latest shot was different. It went far enough to make McAfee himself step into the conversation.
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The former NFL player-turned-sports personality recently took to his X handle to share a screenshot of a social media post on X featuring a montage of McAfee’s game-day clips on his timeline. However, it was the comment that caught attention, as he captioned it, “If someone kirked him live during his show, it would be a top 3 moment in the history of mankind.”
Here, the word ‘kirked’ refers to the death of Charlie Kirk, an internet personality who was assassinated during a public debate at a college campus in Utah.
After McAfee shared the screenshot on his X handle, the person who made the comments soon deleted his account. Now, the question remains: are people going too far when making comments about others? Well, this is not the first time McAfee has received a death threat from a fan.
Back in 2025, when McAfee was a WWE commentator, he took offense to fans in Toronto booing the U.S. national anthem before Saturday night’s show. His comments defending the U.S. national anthem in Toronto faced heavy backlash from fans, with one of them even threatening him directly.
“I hope that little brat f–king dies,” the fan wrote
When he made the situation clear by extending a hand of friendship towards the Canadian people on Monday Night Raw, he was again called out by a fan. This time, however, it went a bit too far, as they said, “If you want to s–t on free speech, you better be ready to die, you p—y.”
For his part, McAfee handled the threatening messages with grace, writing in a caption, “Good morning beautiful people… Standard Wednesday over here… just some random wishing death upon me & my daughter… Hope you all have a great day.”
That’s not all. At least those incidents happened on social media. Back in 2007, Pat McAfee’s life as a West Virginia kicker was turned upside down after he missed two crucial field goals from 20 and 32 yards against Pitt. The 13–9 loss at Milan Puskar Stadium crushed WVU’s BCS title hopes and turned McAfee into one of the night’s biggest targets.
The aftermath? His car was vandalized, his yard was destroyed, and people were making real threats against him. His life was literally in danger.
“I didn’t know if I wanted to live anymore,” McAfee said. “My life changed immediately that day. It was a terrible f—— night, to be honest with you. It was like something out of a movie. I just drove. I got all the way to Virginia through Maryland. I was gone for a couple of days. I drove, parked, slept, and kept driving. I didn’t know where I was. I didn’t know where I was headed. I didn’t know what was coming next.”
It was a truly miserable time for him, but he certainly worked through it and moved past it. Years later, he is one of the most recognised voices in college football. However, why is there suddenly so much dislike for him?
Why is Pat McAfee suddenly facing so much hate?
During ESPN’s Week 1 broadcast from Baton Rouge, McAfee found himself at the centre of criticism after encouraging LSU fans to join in on “Neck,” a stadium chant notorious for its profanity. Several parents who regularly watch the show felt the moment crossed a line, with some saying they turned off the TV rather than expose their children to the language.
MassLive also reported that viewers objected to McAfee’s choice of words and his role in amplifying the chant, with some ultimately deciding to stop watching because they felt the content was inappropriate for their families.
In Austin the following week, the criticism followed McAfee once again, with viewers taking issue with his constant interruptions and his tendency to turn segments into full-blown performances. This time, some of the fans directly asked ESPN to remove him from the show completely.
Just days after the backlash, Pat McAfee found himself at the center of another controversy. During his show, McAfee was seen extinguishing a smoking object on the ESPN set before bringing the unusual moment into “GameDay” while sitting alongside Nick Saban and Kirk Herbstreit in Oxford, Mississippi.
The bizarre stunt only added fuel to the criticism, with more viewers questioning McAfee’s antics and on-air behaviour. His shenanigans have been called out by fans many times, but the assassination comments crossed a line and went a bit too far.